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I thought you had to be a current HOM member; if that is not the case, I would definitely at least throw out a prelim vote for 1971. Long-term would like to develop a system for HOM, but have not had the time as of yet (turns out PhDs are time consuming; who knew?).

I've been a HoM voter since 1898 and I find this a little intimidating. Lately it reads like the Hall of WAR or the MWP. Statistical systems have crowded out a lot of other types of conversations that used to be commonplace around here. I don't blame those who want to talk about WAR, but I do wish there was somebody to talk to in other languages.

Long-time fan of HOM, just about first time caller. I appreciate the above discussion, and volunteer to vote from this point forward, especially if I don't have to know what I'm talking about. It's helpful to have actually have been alive in 1971, and I will use my forty year old memories of life as a 10-year old over WAR and such. I seem to remember every single pack of gum having at least two Ron Swoboda cards in it back around that time, so Swoboda will almost certainly be my most meritorious choice. Roy White was always chunked in there too, it seemed, so he's gonna give Swoboda a run.

I kid. But not about not using WAR and such. We Humanities teachers need to pimp for qualitative studies whenever possible.

I've been with this project since it started, and voting in the HoM for almost 5 years now. They have put up with a LOT of my memories, which date back to the 1950s, as well as my recollections of conversations with the St. Louis sportswriters who were covering baseball in the 1920s. The HoM even put up with me the year I was so sick with the flu that I actually asked whether anyone had taken into account the error rate of Billy Hamilton's time (the 1890s).

If they can put up with that out of me, they can certainly put up with anyone who is as polite and conscientious as you seem to be.

BTW, Topps had the annoying habit of putting lots of cards out of anyone who was reasonably well known but not great, in order to keep you chasing that one great player whose card you lacked. They even did this by region. I got into baseball cards in 1954, but never even SAW a Stan Musial until 1963, his last year. On the other hand, I always had at least a half dozen Mickey Mantles every year. Later I found out that no one in New York had Mantles, but they all had many Musials. Oh, and Swoboda's time has passed; we're already past 1969. But I, at least, do appreciate the humor in there. Ah, Swoboda. We in STL called him The Thing, after the comic book character. - Brock Hanke

I concur, although it's hard to say the 10 people actively engaged are crowding anyone out. I think you have to have some rationale behind your vote. You don't pick a guy based on his uniform color. I'm all in favor of adapting a current system to meet your needs. There is a list of the most obvious candidates posted yearly. Just be prepared to discuss/defend your choices. The list is there to spark discussion, not the other way around.

I find WAR to be very overrated, but I do not ignore issues such as the degree of awfulness of many LF-RF-1Bs with big OPS+s. I just refuse to cut-n-paste off WAR figures (not saying anyone specifically does).

I don't use WAR when compiling my ballot. I use OPS+ and a few other offensive numbers and then I adjust for position (a 100 OPS+ is a lot more valuable coming from a shortstop than from a left fielder) and for defense. For pitchers, I look at ERA+ and IP and then adjust for hitting. I'll take a look at WAR after my ballot is completed to corroborate my results. If I've got someone with a WAR of 2 at the top of my ballot or conversely someone with 10 WAR misses my ballot completely, it's likely I did something wrong. But, no, you don't have to live by WAR (or even know what it is), in order to vote.

I look at WAR and I look at WS and I even look at the MVP voting from the time on the assumption that some insight went into it. And I factor traditional stats and semi-traditional stats (OPS+, etc.), and I factor in my recollections of who I thought the best players were at the time. I remember Bench being better than Yaz and within reason no uber-stat is gonna outweight that. Agreed about qualitative methods. Can and should.

Everyone who wants to discuss their ballot is eligible to vote. I'd like to discourage "drive-by" voters who post a ballot and leave. Otherwise there are no other eligibility requirements. There is no requirement everyone votes every year.

I can't tell if you're kidding. Are you really suggesting that you shouldn't have to put any thought into the process? Why would you want to pick a winner without regard to how much he helped his team? Or are you just pulling my chain?